Faculty Book: Randolph Trumbach

Randolph Trumbach, Matt Cook, H.G. Cocks, and Robert Mills

A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages (Greenwood World Publishing, 2007)

Drawing on a fabulous wealth of research, the authors—each an expert in his field—deliver a highly-readable and eye-opening history of love and desire between men in Britain from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the present. The book is chronologically structured in six chapters covering the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods; the Reformation and Renaissance; the eighteenth century; the nineteenth century; 1914–67; and finally 1967 to the present. Each chapter examines subcultures and concepts of identity, discusses major controversies and scandals, and looks at church and state attempts at regulation. The book also assesses the impact of social and cultural change—the development of railways and the internet—on the way men were able to relate to one another. Broad in its coverage but nuanced in its detail—including never-before-seen illustrations—A Gay History of Britain is the new standard history of the subject. Randolph Trumbach is a professor of history at Baruch College and the Graduate Center.